Clinics across the nation attribute improvements in HIV care to advancements in EHR technologies and information sharing capabilities, wrote Thomas Mason, MD, CMO of ONC, in an agency blog post commemorating National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day Sept. 18.
Here are three insights from conversations Dr. Mason had with physicians on how EHRs have revolutionized HIV care.
1. Pete Thomas, MD, an internist and medical director of Chicago-based Cook County Health and Hospital System's Woodlawn Health Center, said EHRs allow physicians to access patient data critical for HIV care.
Dr. Thomas said the center's population health registry "allows me to get straight to the point; it allows us to have the data in one place and helps us make good decisions and have clear conversations with whoever else picks up the chart down the line."
2. Amy Justice, MD, PhD, the section chief of general medicine at West Haven-based Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System and professor of medicine and public health at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University, said its technology, the Veterans Aging Cohort Study Index, makes health data more manageable. It also predicts mortality and other outcomes using health metrics in those living with HIV infection, writes Dr. Mason.
3. Tom Moore, vice president of New York City-based Healthix, one of New York's publicly funded health information exchanges, said the company contracts with the national nonprofit The AIDS Institute to find patients who have been "lost to care," or who don't show up for treatment. This allows the HIE to help patients find a primary care physician that specializes in HIV/AIDS treatment.
Another HIE program, the Louisiana Public Health Information Exchange, successfully linked 82 percent of 344 out-of-care patients to HIV care in the first 18 months of its implementation.
Click here to read the full ONC blog post.
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